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Martin Dressler

The Tale of an American Dreamer

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
The American Dream is a theme so compelling it resonates throughout our culture. In Martin Dressler, Steven Millhauser creates a young man who, in dedicating his life to it, becomes a symbol of that dream. Powerful, lyrical, finely crafted, this best-selling book won the Pulitzer Prize, was a National Book Award finalist, and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Martin Dressler, son of an immigrant cigar maker, believes he can achieve anything if he works hard enough. At the turn of the century, he rises from the shadows of his father's shop in New York City to become a powerful entrepreneur and builder of hotels. But, as he contemplates this land of almost limitless opportunity, his plans grow impossibly grand. Through the curve of Martin's spectacular rise and eventual downfall in the business world, his tale remains a uniquely American one. Martin may not always control an empire, but he will always be able to dream. Narrator George Guidall voices Martin's industry and optimism while his performance captures the literary power of Millhauser's style.
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    • AudioFile Magazine
      This Pulitzer Prize-winning story of a self-made restaurant/hotel magnate presents a real challenge to narrator George Guidall. Usually Guidall can grab a story or character with his voice, inhabit it and produce a memorable reading. Author Millhauser's strength, though, is description, sometimes lengthy description. Thus, Guidall's strong and vibrant voice is reduced to narrating lists of architectural attributes, the contents of hotel interiors, and characters' feelings. Also, there is little dialogue, so he doesn't get a chance to develop characters. Make no mistake; Guidall is a wonderful narrator, and he makes the story more interesting than it has a right to be. It's just that his talents seem underused here. R.I.G. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      February 15, 1998
      Experienced narrator George Guidall tells this Horatio Alger-meets-Walt Disney account of an ambitious young man living the American dream with spectacular bravado (LJ 4/15/96). Martin starts out as a bellhop in a modest hotel in turn-of-the-century Manhattan and ends up building lavish hotels that turn out to be theatrical extravaganzas. The author has vividly described it all in elegant prose, but for some reason he tends to stifle his characters. Instead of letting them talk for themselves, he talks about them. In fact, there is so little dialog that the liveliest character in the book is the city of New York. Guidall does his best to animate the inanimate text, but perhaps reading it aloud is not the best approach. Since Martin Dressler won Millhauser a Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award, it might make sense to enjoy the printed book and forget about the audio program. A marginal purchase.--Jo Carr, Sarasota, Fla.

      Copyright 1998 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from April 1, 1996
      Literature's romance with the building-as-metaphor earns new energy through Millhauser's latest novel (after Little Kingdoms, 1993), which quietly chronicles the life of an entrepreneur whose career peaks when he builds a fabulous hotel in turn-of-the-century Manhattan. Beginning with his first jobs-in his father's cigar shop and as a bellhop-young Martin's rise is fueled by a happy blend of pragmatism and imagination. Both inform the design of the cafes and hotels he builds as an adult, though the latter seems to gain sway in the construction of his magnum opus, the Grand Cosmo. Within the rusticated walls of that grand hotel, one floor's elevators open onto "a densely wooded countryside" dotted with cottages; another floor simulates a rugged mountainside, featuring "caves" furnished with beds, plumbing and "refrigerated air." For recreation, guests can wander in the artificial moonlight of the Pleasure Park or visit the Temple of Poesy, where young women in Green tunics will recite poetry, 24 hours a day. Such amenities speak of Dressler's view of the hotel as "a world within the world, rivaling the world." In deliberate contrast stands Millhauser's cooler evocation of his protagonist's private life. The magnate's genial sister-in-law works for him, while the troubles of his neurasthenic wife-"his sister's sister, his tense, languous, floating, ungraspable bride"-reflect his increasingly manic, untethered imaginings. Millhauser's characteristic fascination with the material artifacts of the vanished past-and the startling deftness with which he can describe the street, the carnival, the hotel that never existed-marks him as a cultural historian as well as an idiosyncratic fabulist. Taking its place alongside other fine tales of architectural symbology, from Poe to Borges to Ayn Rand, this enticing novel becomes at once the tale of a life, a marriage and a creative imagination in crisis.

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  • English

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